


All The Missed Signs (Look To Me But Never Through Me)

by maridoll



Category: Pocket Monsters | Pokemon (Main Video Game Series), Pocket Monsters: Black & White | Pokemon Black and White Versions
Genre: introspection on n's childhood, some references to the cult-y aspects of team plasma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-16
Updated: 2019-02-16
Packaged: 2019-10-29 11:30:04
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,966
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17807177
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/maridoll/pseuds/maridoll
Summary: this was my piece for the pokevillains zine ! you can actually still purchase the zine/merch and support the team, so if you wanna see more awesome content, head over to pokevillainszine.tumblr.com





	All The Missed Signs (Look To Me But Never Through Me)

**Author's Note:**

> this was my piece for the pokevillains zine ! you can actually still purchase the zine/merch and support the team, so if you wanna see more awesome content, head over to pokevillainszine.tumblr.com

[  _ Winter _ ]

 

It was much easier to piece it together from the outside, from a source lurking beyond the muddy boundary of grey they liked to throw around.

 

Of course, they would tell you it was simple. Black and white. Two opposing sides and a single conflict of interest. One goal and one way to achieve it. It was what they were taught, after all. What they were led to believe. What  _ he _ was led to believe all his life, for as long as he could remember.

 

One side. His side. The side  _ for _ pokemon. The side to liberate them. The side to free them. 

 

And then a follied ideal failing to take ground against it, arguing for the opposite disguised as cohesion.

 

It was the Plasma way versus the falsified ideals of the entire world. 

 

Except the grey was easy to see, had you been outside of it. Because, weren’t Plasma members pokemon trainers as well? Because, didn’t they treat needed pokemon with the same respect they showed outsiders that refused to give in to their messy beliefs? 

 

Seeing from the inside was impossible. Recruitment was out of the question once the public speeches began. Acknowledgement of a wrongdoing from within the Plasma ranks was also out of the question. They were absolute. They were for the pokemon. There were no flaws. Together, they would forge a future with the Hero.

 

Liberating pokemon from the hands of every human ensured that no one could falter and betray the creatures. It was why he himself did not own any pokemon. It was why he was alone -had he seen Plasma members equipped with pokeballs and his own sages with full teams, what would he have thought?

 

So he was not given a chance to think. Everyone in Plasma was the same. Everyone was on the side for pokemon. Everyone was against the world. It was them versus the world.

  
•

 

_ It’s cold in the castle. He’s leaning heavily against a Mamoswine, breaths coming out in pants, nearly slumped over from the effort of standing. His face is burning; his body is cool. The pokemon companions he has gathered do not have the resources to help. But then, he thinks, since when was he in it for himself? _

 

[  _ Spring _ ]

 

If you never grew up in a glass case, more than sheltered and less than desocialized, then how would you know what it meant to break free?

 

To strip away the confinements. The restraints. And then, after all the effort, to not know how to continue going on.

 

He was awkward, at best. All of his knowledge had been cherry-picked and given specifically to him, thus, everything he knew was known by those that had taught him, that had wanted him to learn. Whether the information was false did not matter, no, because it was all he knew.

 

To have slashes up his arms and across his thighs because the new pokemon was small and timid and had been prior abused. Nevermind that it was by his “father”, that was an unknown. It was simply another human that had inflicted the hurt, and it was always him that was left to pick up the pieces, to try and adapt, to help comfort the unfortunate souls of pokemon that had been caught up in the spider’s web.

 

They liked to hide under the skateboard ramp. When he found them, they climbed to the very top, before the incline began. He could never reach; too thin and too weak to begin to try and scale the distance. All he had was his voice, was the language they shared.

 

That, too, was exploited. 

 

He was revered for it. He was the king,  _ their _ king. Because he was a special friend to all pokemon, everyone was beneath him. Because he could understand pokemon, he was the destined Hero in the legend of old. And because he could freely demonstrate this lack of a language barrier, everyone that had been gathered could fall into line smoothly, no doubts about the king to be had, no doubts of the future Hero to ever be known.

 

Mathematics was always his best subject. He moved through it quickly and decisively, so fast the sage that taught him was soon replaced by advanced texts. In this area, he was a genius, a true prodigy. Later in life he finally realized why: math was a constant, unchanging being. You could not manipulate it. You had no reason to unlearn or relearn it. Two plus two would always equal four.

 

But the liberation of pokemon would not always equal their total separation from humanity. 

 

And all of his cherry-picked knowledge would never equate to the full truth. 

 

Speaking with pokemon was easier than speaking with people. They did not expect a certain manner of behavior, or syntax, or posture, or anything relating to a functional human society. They spoke and he spoke back. He spoke back and he was able to calm them from the ramp. They slipped into his arms and were deemed ‘cured’ and released back into the wild. Another deranged one was left to take their place.

 

If the only pokemon he ever met were those who signified total distrust in humanity, could he not be blamed for assuming only the exact same?

  
•

 

_ It is very wet; the snow has melted. He does not know if the sun is out. It has been quite a while since he has been in a patch of ruins that would allow the light through. He sits beside a pool, artificial light provided by a friendly Lanturn to keep him company. His fingers are moving, quickly, back and forth on the filled pages of scribbled equations and calculations. _

 

[  _ Summer _ ]

 

Information flows. It is quick, though accuracy is never questioned. If you control the information flowing through, you hold the key to the future. 

 

Those who control the present control the past, and therefore the future. 

 

He was the king, and together with Team Plasma, he would liberate all pokemon. 

 

He had a father named Ghetsis. His early years of life among pokemon were a test to nurture his abilities to speak to them. When it was time to come back, Ghetsis reclaimed him. 

 

He was to be the savior of the new world, and Ghetsis to serve as his loyal advisor, alongside six other wise teachers of his.

 

He was the only one who could help the beaten and broken pokemon brought to him, no matter how much he was beaten and broken by them before they grew better.

 

He was the king of Plasma, and everyone pledged allegiance to him. Everyone was on his side, everyone believed in the cause.

 

The only way to complete their goal was for him to become champion of Unova and enforce their ideals. The only way was for him to demand everyone comply.

 

Because he could speak to and understand pokemon, he was the one to control Reshiram and request its power to establish himself as champion.

 

Because he was following his own truths, he was a Hero. Because they directly opposed him and his truths, they were the other hero against him.

 

He was on the side of pokemon, and to liberate them from cruel people was his own way of thinking. Indeed, it had been his idea to borrow the power of the legendary dragon to succeed in the plan of his creation. To best Alder in the champion of old’s own game was his brilliant design.

 

The Zorua that liked to follow him around disappeared from time to time, but always managed to make its way back to him.

 

For instance, in his formulating of the plans, the pokemon was nowhere in sight. When he was requested to Dragonspiral Tower, the illusion pokemon was but a distant thought. In the time of the conquering of the pokemon league, the Zorua had not been one of his allies against the elite four.

 

But perhaps if he could recall, the little pokemon had been there sometimes, right? It was muddy, but he could envision the pokemon’s smirk from underneath the skate ramp just before the door opened to reveal a sage summoning him for another lesson.

 

And in Chargestone Cave against the reborn hero of ideals, appearing to lend him a hand in the battle to test out new emotions and new figures springing into his own carefully hatched plans.

 

Once more, when embarking with Reshiram through the air to a brand new place, soft fur ruffling against his neck, a weight pressing into his shoulder. Outlining what was real.

 

Because, among everything, the Zorua was real, right?

 

•

 

_ The air is thick and dusty. The collapsed stone walls around him are as brittle as his parched throat. All the water has dried up in the heat. He still cannot find it in himself to leave. When the atmosphere becomes too unbearable, he once again turns to the Ninetales resting nearby and requests a direct confuse ray attack. If he cannot recall, he will not be so miserable. _

 

[  _ Autumn _ ]

 

“I  _ chose _ you, Ghetsis.”

 

“Are you sure about that?”

 

It was not until he was exposed to the other side that he began to see faults. Everything was always much more grey than it had appeared. 

 

He had once told a Plasma member that he  _ existed _ on the borderline between human and pokemon. Once, it had been fed to him that it was his sole purpose to separate the two.

Now, he realized. He toed the line, but it was more of a reprieve than anything. He was still very much human. He was still corruptible. And in the eyes of the sages, he was very much an unfinished product.

 

The puppet king to parade around as a pretty backdrop to their true intentions hidden in the foreground, he, he was slipping. Learning. Forming his own opinions. 

 

When it came time to question his entire existence, was it any wonder why he left Unova, the birthplace of all his trauma?

 

It was never about pokemon. It was about control. Over the region, over the world. And it started with control over him, him and his power. The perfect exploitation.

 

When he began to break free, when he began to see the grey, there was one last chance to be had to pull him back.

 

His innocence, throughout it all, was terrifying.

 

At the end, it was all that remained.

 

Because he was raised with the absence of human presence, substituted instead for deranged pokemon, the few people that were let in stood out the most. The mastermind especially so. Ghetsis was special.

 

His voice was a powerful timbre, commanding the sages to succeed with his goals, ordering the grunts to do the lower bidding, devising the perfect plan to succumb Unova under his boot.

 

But then there were other times. Times that voice would grow soft, barely there, and then the fuzzy feeling would take over. He didn’t always remember what would happen after. The only constant had ever been . . . his pliantness. 

 

“Natural.”

 

And then. Then.

 

“Go back to your room.”

 

His feet move.

  
•

 

_ When it is time, he finds himself standing from the corner with the help of a Scizor making home there for the coming cool months. His eyes can barely stand to look at the blue carpet dotted with clouds -it is not the  _ real _ sky. This room was a cage. Staggering out and through the halls, they don’t attract much attention. It is only when they are in front of the grand doors that he realizes exactly what he is doing. And when Scizor cuts them down with a well-placed attack, he finds himself easily striding through them, a purpose in each step. _

 

_ It was time to be free of it all. _

**Author's Note:**

> i never actually finished bw2 (i think i was at the last gym) but i read a summary on the plot once and sorta got the gist of it. if you didn't catch on, the little interludes are from the bw2 postgame, where the protag can challenge n at the old tp castle.


End file.
